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DiscussionThe afterward of manga Welcome Back, Alice by Shuzo Oshimi
Welcome Back Alice is a adult manga series basically about a love triangle between a TIM, a boy, and a girl. I think middle schoolers? It's a weird series, obviously, but the afterward of the final volume (book 7) by the author is a real doozy. I transcribed it below:
Afterward
For years before I started this story, Iâd been thinking that I wanted to put my discomfort and distress regarding sex into form and express it as a comic. As Iâve described in the preceding afterwards, for some reason, Iâm not good at being a man. I'm afraid to interact with women. Even among men, I feel out of place. I canât get rid of my discomfort. I cant even have sex well. In fact, I feel a disconnect between the me that has sex and the normal me (or the me that masturbates). Actually, not even the me that masturbates feels like me. My internal mind and the reality of my body donât match at all. I always feel alienated. Is it just me? Do others feel this way too?
Wondering whether anyone had put a name to it, I searched the internet and books.
And I found ample discourse regarding the social role of men and gender. The social structure and history of male domination. The terms patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Objective social analysis and criticism of problems regarding men. But even being aware of all that, I felt a restless sense that it didnât reach the root of my suffering.
Wasnât there anyone who had deeply articulated the internal pain experienced from a male viewpoint, particularly regarding sex?
Then one day, I came upon a book called Confessions of A Frigid Man, by Masahiro Morioka. This book, written by a professor of philosophy, cut like a razor into the depths of the authorâs sexuality. To me, it felt like an i-novel of the mind. I was astonished at the way he reflected on and deeply observed the conditions of his libido and articulated the desires underlying. âI want to feel proud love for my own body by leaving my original body and entering that of a girl.â âEven now I cannot honestly say that I am really happy to have the body of a man.â âWhat is in the back of my mind is a desire to have sex with another âanother meâ in the form of a young girl and in doing so give birth to myself once again without the intervention of anyone else.â The books words made my murky desires clear.
I felt that I had to make my own tour through the hells of my sexuality. I wanted to frankly depict my personal problems with sex so that I could follow them so that I could follow them to the true nature of my suffering. And so I began thinking up this story.
This was serialized in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine, a comics magazine for boys. The world of boysâ comics is full of romantic comedies. The prurient comics I read in magazines for young and older boys as an elementary school student played a critical role in the early formative years of my sexuality. The females depicted there are still inside me. It was imprinted on me that to look at them and become aroused and erect was what it meant to be male, an what it meant to be me. Though conventions of expression may change with the years, I think that such constructions of male sexuality can continue to be reiterated in romantic comedies and I myself have worked as a comic artist creating works in that context. Iâve tried to hook male readers by enflaming their libido. But I was never satisfied by just fulfilling their desires that way. I think the reason is that I myself felt something unsavory in those desires, and it ate at me that this wasnât what I truly wanted. The hook was, to me, sort of a confession. A confession that such desires lurked in me. But what I truly wanted, it seemed, was something different. I wanted to use my story to search for it.
When I had Kei say he was done being a guy, I saw the theme of the comic being where he should go from there.
The desire to be done with it was clear. But how could you be done with it?
Kei appears in girlsâ clothing, but that can only be a temporary expedient. While he looks like a girl and acts like one of those pervy girls in comics, heâs actually suffering from being unable to be done with being a guy. While drawing it, I asked myself what he should do then. I planned for the story to follow the form of a romantic comedy while reading its way out from the inside, but it turned out that following the form of romantic comedy was so suffocating to me that I couldnât keep it up. My fundamental discofort with and rejection of libido and love blew their way out, and the story simply reflected my suffering more and more.
While I was working on it, I started to wonder whether that âwhere to go nextâ had already been lost forever.
I experienced changes in myself too.
It became too hard for me to watch any kind of porn anymore. I think I was a porn addict ever since elementary school. I started with comics and moved on to magazines and videos, masturbating to them almost every day. It might have caused significant changes to my mind, even damage to my brain. I couldnât stand how I reflexively become aroused and erect upon seeing them. But I didnât know how else to âdispose of my sex drive.â
Wait, could it be that I didnât even have sexual urges and it was all an illusion? Was it just a lie that Iâd been fed that it needed to be âdisposed ofâ or âaccumulatedâ like trash? For the first time since elementary school, distanced myself from masturbation. It wasnât restraint, but an attempt to negate the sex drive itself. But it was difficult. Much more than quitting cigarettes or alcohol.
But why am I so attached to sex? It would be so much easier if I just discarded it, yet I cling to it with tenacity. I donât know how to love myself. My body or my mind. Itâs because I starve for love that hold unrealistic illusions about sex and depend on them.
So my foremost problem is that I want to love myself but canât.
This isnât something someone else can cure for me. I have to fix it myself. I drew Welcome back, Alice with that purpose. Through the suffering of Yohei, Kei, Mitani, and Ano, I peeled away my illusions and delusions little by little. Each of them is another me.
Now I finished drawing it, but Iâm still not done with being a man, nor with sex. Nor have I been able to get rid of my discomfort with myself.
But the one answer I have found is to keep being done with where I am now. Where to go next changes each moment. Itâs not as if thereâs a finish line. I must always look hard at where I am and seek another way of being. Rather than running away but imposing my illusions on others, I must keep stepping down from myself.
Probably, the pain will never fully heal, and at times, ill hurt others due to this problem of mine. But each time, I want to look for where to go next.
I want to say again and again, âIâm home,â and tell myself, âWelcome back.â
I think thatâs the best I can do.
August 2021 Shuzo Oshimi
Yes they are aware but they are male, and it is in their male nature to dominate. So they do not care.
Of course they know--they are looking for "violation thrills."
They should class this in with self-harm activities, and also risk-taking behaviors, jumping out of airplanes.
Yes. Now that you mention this, I don't think it's a coincidence that so many AGPs have backgrounds in the military, or other hyper-masculine fields.
I sort of knew a cross-dresser back in the '70s. An ex-boyfriend owned the house this guy was renting. He had previously been a mercenary. He always carried a concealed weapon and was as macho as they came. I was afraid of him. He was also an FBI informant and some men that he informed on went to jail. When they got out they went after him beat him to an inch of his life and buried him alive in the desert. His girlfriend was with him and convinced them that she had a lot of money in the bank so they went to the bank with her and she got help. When my ex went to clean out the house he found a ton of pics with him in women's clothes. A lot of transvestites are ex-military.
Oh my god I hate when I get beaten and buried alive in the desert
That's really interesting. I haven't read much about it, but it wouldn't surprise me if AGPs also had a higher rate of substance abuse. It seems like a lot of softball mainstream media profiles of AGP men include a references to their "gender dysphoria" causing them to abuse alcohol. It wouldn't be surprising for a group of men addicted to edgy, thrill-seeking behavior.
My AGP ex is terrified of intoxication and addiction, and went straight edge. He also joined a cult that bans all substance use, even coffee and sugar. I'm convinced that for some men, the anti drugs 'clean body' stuff is the way they self medicate.
That's hardly a normal relationship with the world (and "substances", including sugar and coffee) either, though.
It sounds to me like deep down he knows he has one debilitating addiction (AGP) and is coping by going clean with everything else. I have a problem with alcohol and even though it seems contradictory I delude myself by being a fitness freak in every other way. I don't think this is the most common route people with addictions take (and it's not always sustainable), but it definitely happens.
ETA: And to build on that, it always amazes me that amount of TIPs who choose to work out and lose weight (and even get sober, I do seem them sometimes talk about this) AFTER they trans. I mean, maybe if they tried getting healthy beforehand they'd have a better relationship with their bodies?!
Yes, of course, the vast majority of TIMs know that it's wrong for them and other men and boys to go into female spaces. Even the ones raised to take their "trans privilege" for granted since they were little boys like Jazz Jennings have to pick up that what they are doing is wrong by the time they are in their early-mid teens.
In the past, I had assumed the ones who invaded our spaces simply didn't care how it made women feel and even got off on it but now I'm wondering if some of them actually know what they're doing is wrong.
I think you're misunderstanding the power dynamics at play here. The main reason these men and boys get off on invading female spaces is precisely because they know it's wrong and that it makes women and girls feel deeply uncomfortable and afraid.
TIMs may be mostly narcissists, and quite a few are also on the autism spectrum, but at some level to a man they are aware how their grotesque boundary violations make women and girls feel. With perhaps a few exceptions here and there, these men and boys behave as they do because they are arrogant, entitled, anger-driven, male supremacist colonizers who hate us, want to take away what's ours, and want to lord it over us. They want to put girls and women "in our place," take away our rights and make our daily lives as difficult and unpleasant as they possibly can.
The main reason these men and boys get off on invading female spaces is precisely because they know it's wrong and that it makes women and girls feel deeply uncomfortable and afraid
If no ome cares, they wouldnt want to do it. They say they want acceptance, bit if they ever get it (or people jist get bored of fighting them) they will have to escalate. These type of habits seems even more destructive than ordinary addictions. Its possible to sustain alcohol addiction for years or decades at the same level, its doesnt have to continually escalate, and the negative side effects arent the same as the ultimate goal.
These pra
With perhaps a few exceptions here and there
Yeah, I think there definitely must be a few exceptions who don't understand well enough to get why it would be wrong. I remember one young detransitioner who described going out for lunch with a TERF and from that conversation realizing the negative impacts on women that he hadn't considered prior which then made him stop doing it. If you've been taught from a young age that facilities are arranged by self-selected identity, you may not actually know the history of why that's one of the worst idea ever.
I don't buy it. Surely, he knows that men rape with penises. And that women are aware of this. And that rapists don't wear signs around their necks.
He is allowed to use his brain.
Of course. But I do think these younger people being brainwashed by internet propaganda (don't forget how this stuff is in institutions with authority, medicine, academia, government, it has a veneer of respectability) are a different cohort than your average older TIM. They shouldn't have to be educated, but let's be honest, young people are dumb as fuck. Of course it's not a woman's job to educate them, I would LOVE to see more men standing up and telling these dumbasses to grow the fuck up and learn, but that would mean they'd have to admit that men are threats to women in general...well you can see where that goes. But I will never blame young people for being stupid tbh, especially when they are blasted with propaganda that denies reality and all the adults around them seem to be buying into it (it's not like young women don't fall for it too and think it's okay for bepenised people to be in their spaces).
I don't know. About the whole be-penised thing in women's spaces it seems that my generation are far more on board than the youngsters, at least from what I've seen.
Don't forget that teenagers see in school the vast behavioural differences between girls and boys, that are even worse now due to the boys often being porn-sick from a young age. They are not that naĂŻve about the nature of males.
I have a youngster with a lot of enby and female friends and it's amazing that how true believing they are. But I do live in a liberal bubble. It's his entire social group (including him, though he does admit in private the concept of gender is bullshit, I hope he gets to the point of acknowledging it openly, even though it's social suicide in his circle, he's becoming a better critical thinker and less weeny person every day haha), but we do live in an extremely liberal bubble, so maybe I'm out of touch with Gen Z in general. In my bubble EVERYONE mostly is or pretends to be a true believer. I'm openly gender critical and have had some of his friends say they feel "unsafe" coming to our house. I do really think a lot more youngsters are naive about males than you realize. I really do.
Young people in nicer areas tend to be sheltered away from worldly dangers and think of things like getting sexually assaulted or trapped in an abuse relationship to be one of those things that happens to really careless people.
Then you grow up and realize that you have to go out into the world all by yourself and are no longer surrounded by family and friends all the time. When you are alone, you are a target. And not all monsters are running around with massive red flags like multiple facial tattoos and piercings.
Yes. They get off of forcing themselves into womenâs spaces, knowing women are too scared or too polite to say anything, and the TIM is just waiting for an excuse to blow up or fake tears and suicidality if they are challenged (theyâll usually film it too).
Itâs the same energy as forcing themselves on women sexually. Theyâre just too chickenshit to do that (yet). They know itâs wrong, thatâs why they do it.
Have you ever seen TiMs complain about women being "too" supportive? For example, making a big show of using their pronouns or including them in female spaces? I wonder if they feel cock-blocked in some sense because they were denied to the opportunity to get off on intimidating women.
Yes, or they get mad if no one makes a big deal about it. I've seen lots of TIMs complaining that no one seemed to care when they came out to family, which. Lol. Any LGB person would be relieved if they came out to family and no one treated it like a big deal. It's almost like they were disappointed they didn't get a fight.
I remember when one of the talking points of the pro-gay marriage side was that gays and lesbians were normal people who wanted to lead normal lives. Perpetual victimhood and negative attention-seeking behavior are not normal.
I think here the disappointment for TIPs might be that they didnât get a celebration?
Always been a big contradiction in the movement for me. They expect people to celebrate a debilitating medical condition (in their words) that requires surgeries and such. Okay, I can celebrate that you found OUT you had this condition and got help (if I believed in it of course, just a hypothetical) but I could never celebrate the condition itself! That's like celebrating a cancer patient having to get chemo!
Holy shit you're right! I never thought about it that way
Think a lot talk themselves/each other into believing that it's wrong for women to try to keep them out instead, but yes, they know...or harm caused to women doesn't count in how they measure right and wrong because they don't see women as real people worth considering.
It's how they manage their depression and mental health issues. It's like cutting, the feelings of intensity.
For a different perspective, my TIM ex saw his transition as the process of âbecoming a womanâ. He did not believe that he was always a woman, he thought that taking hormones and wearing womenâs clothes was making him a woman.
He didnât start using the womenâs restroom until he âfelt like a womanâ. Itâs weird logic, I know. But in his mind he wasnât doing anything wrong because he waited until he felt like he had finally become a woman.
Perhaps then the dude going to the disabled toilets hadn't quite reached that "I've finally become a woman" phase.
I commend you for not posting this comment from jail. I don't think I would be able to restrain myself
He knows it's wrong and he's going to report this incident online as "a terf made me feel unsafe so I went in the disabled toilet".
Some like violating women, some want to be humiliated. Either way, real women are props in their single-minded pursuit of validation and sexual thrill.
There might be a small group of them who truly donât know itâs wrong. Those are the men who have been caught up in this movement because theyâre actually vulnerable people and are severely autistic or have a host of other mental disorders that prevent them from being in line with reality and/or completely lack the ability to understand how theyâre perceived by others.
But the majority absolutely know itâs wrong, and in fact demonstrably jerk off to it.
This.
And some go online to ask if it's wrong (because they say they feel bad about using or even thinking about using women's spaces) and other mentally ill and/or fetishistic men tell them they belong there.
They know. It's part of why some fake or exaggerate their need for our spaces. They know women need those spaces.
They know, inherently, that it is wrong, but itâs not âwrong enoughâ in our society anymore to do so, and therefore they feel justified. Even ten years ago, it was a lot more âwrongâ, and youâd find most of those who do it now wouldnât have then. Or even location based⌠so many of these western trans are obsessed with Japan, I wonder if theyâd dare go into a womenâs bathroom there?
Remember, men rationalize their behaviors and only go as far as they think is appropriate, and they think selfishly in that aspect, not thinking of how their choices affect others. They think, oh, Iâm not the raping type so I can go in. Oh, Iâm one of the good ones, I wouldnât hit a woman who doesnât deserve it. I wouldnât stalk most women. They donât think of it as their actions rationalizing others that do harm people, or how women feel about this, they just think of themselves.
Yes, they know it's wrong. And it's a safe bet that any man who claims to be a woman is consuming a huge amount of really awful porn. No matter how demure he acts in public.
I've sometimes gotten the sense that the demure ones are the most dangerous and perverted.
The ones who dress in a distorted version of women's business casual are a particular type of terrifying since they are fetishizing the most mundane and nonsexual aspects of womens' lives.
No, They don't give a crap who they bother or hurt with their behavior. otherwise they would advocate for their own space,
It always seems like they get a boner when real women hold onto the shortest end of the stick, like any biological male they love to taunt or antagonize women they can't control.
They know it's wrong, and they get off on it. It's impossible to overestimate how much men enjoy shame. It makes their pee-pees throb.
They know on some level. That's often what they mean when they claim they're terrified of "terfs" and lesbians. Men are afraid women will laugh at them, or say "no", or otherwise make them feel like they're not on top of the world.
We maybe could chase most out once and for all if all women could get on board with telling them to fuck off, but a few doing it here or there just feeds their persecution complex and emboldens them to steamroll over any naysayers. Under current conditions, greyrock is the least bad option.
Yes, they know. Most of them just don't give a shit
The ones that do it anyway are power tripping. They HOPE someone will be uncomfortable, even better if they are visibly so. They want to force you to accept it and bully you if you don't. It is about power over women
Some who may actually have a mental illness that makes them have Gender dysmorphia know they are not wanted and don't invade the space
Yes, but I donât think all TIMs get off on intimidating the women in there - some that pass might just find it funny or validating but not arousing, especially if theyâre HSTS. AGPs howeverâŚ
They aren't aware of anything, except for how "euphoric" they feel in their spinny skirts. đ
If there is such a thing as a TIM that is so mentally delayed that he doesn't know, I would hope he's sequestered in a care facility and was never allowed to trans in the first place... Unfortunately, you got to play NPC in a fetish quest for a man that definitely knows what he is doing is wrong. His shamed appearance was probably part of the LARP. Hopefully you don't see him again, but if you do, he will either ask you about the bathrooms again, or he will go directly to the women's. It depends on what part you/other employees have to play in his fantasies.
Yes. I read someone say once that it's a humiliation kink. They thrive on negative attention, It's why they're incapable of behaving with any dignity. Just because he chickened out this time doesn't mean his behavior won't escalate.
It's not always that. Might be humiliation, might be that they get off on making others uncomfortable, might be voyeurism, might be getting off on social ladyhood, maybe they just want to steal used women's hygiene products such as pads or tampons or whatever. There are a variety of fetishes/kinks/paraphilias that fall into this specific scenario which is why I have come to be generally against it.